"unsearchable..."

"His greatness is
unsearchable..."

"what are you looking for..."
my mother
asked one afternoon as
I paced the path
between the clothesline...

hung heavy with sheets and towels,
baby diapers and socks of
every size...

and the row of peony bushes
heavy with fragrant blossoms, 
heady and overblown
in every shade
from the purest white to
the most
passionate fuschia....

"i am searching for
direction,
for answers,
for a sign....

what should I do?
where should I go?
when should I go there?
who should I listen to?

I am a grown up now
I have reached this
milestone of
maturity...

I have graduated,
but I need direction and
as much as I love you,
you can't tell me
I have to find it
for myself...

And that is what I am
doing, I say,
I am searching
seeking,
pacing...
for direction,
answers,
guidance....
a plan.

"oh," she says,
and
without a pause,
she hoists her
heavy basket of wet
laundry to her hip and
carries it to the
far side of the clothesline
where an empty stretch of
of taut rope waits for
its share of the load she will
hang precisely...each pair of
pajama bottoms sharing
a clothespin with
the t-shirt next to it...

as I watch her, I realize that
if they did not share, she would
quickly run out of clothespins and
someone's blouse or
bermuda shorts would not dry, and
other's would fall to the ground...

and that is when I knew
that my answer was as close
as the familiar
lines of my mother's strong back...arms stretched
above her as she pinned my
nightgown next to my brother's
school shirt...and I stopped
searching,
pacing,
wondering...and joined her
as she unpinned a sun-dried
bed sheet from the closest
line letting me help her..

and as naturally as
the flower turns to the sun, I
took the bottom
end and began to
fold it with her...

the greatness of His
answer was
unsearchable....

it just was...